In the Pandora myth, Pandora originally opened a jar, despite the modern title “Pandora’s Box.” The earliest surviving Greek account describes a large storage vessel, called a pithos, rather than a small box.
The “box” wording comes from a Renaissance translation. The humanist Erasmus translated the Greek vessel term into the Latin word pyxis, meaning a box or container, and that choice strongly influenced later European retellings. The title became familiar even though it does not match the object in Hesiod’s version.
Pandora’s jar contained evils that escaped into the world when she opened it. The story is therefore often used as a metaphor for an action whose consequences cannot be reversed. Artistic depictions frequently show a hinged box, reinforcing the later wording rather than the older Greek image.
A related detail is that hope remained inside after the jar was closed. The myth does not make the container a magical treasure chest; it is an ordinary vessel transformed by its contents and consequences.